


Tundra

by TopHat



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 00:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18789406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TopHat/pseuds/TopHat





	Tundra

“This is your new mother, Gransla. Say hello, Mimi.”

Mimi didn’t say hello. Instead she looked up at the woman who had come to take her away and tried to imagine doing family-things with her. Hugging the ice blue suit when she got home from school, splattering paint from an art project onto the white button-up so crisp it looked like paper instead of cloth, and turning the tiny unpainted frown upside down at a dinner table filled with all the McDonalds she could eat. She tried to fit the icicle-woman into the warm, fuzzy box title “Mom” in her head, to hallucinate her storytelling voice reciting The Hungry, Hungry Caterpillar, to feel the woman’s arms around her in a soft, comforting hug.

The matron nudged her arm. Lightly. “Say hello, Mimi.”

“Hello.” Mimi did her best not to sound eager. She kept her hands at her side, fighting the urge to reach up and check the makeup on her cheeks.

Gransla didn’t seem impressed. “Smile.”

Mimi twisted her lips up. Right. Smile. Potential parents liked seeing smiles. After a second, she widened it a little. Potential parents liked seeing teeth, so Mimi and Elle were sure to brush their teeth extra carefully.

The woman stared down at Mimi, impassive.

Mimi’s cheeks began to ache.

An eternity later, Gransla looked away and nodded. “I’ll take her.”

***

“Can I have some money?”

Mimi had come prepared. She’d memorized a list of excuses, lies, and explanations. Snacks for school, colored pencils, a new hobby, half a hundred fairly-plausible things. She’d even thought about a version of the truth, one which focused why it was embarrassing to go to school with people staring at your face and that she was sorry for raiding Gransla’s cosmetics but Mimi didn’t want to shoplift in a new town and didn’t know who was offering part time lawn care jobs to minors and if Gransla could just float her enough for the basics Mimi would be sure to pay it off eventually she just didn’t want the other kids to point and laugh and call her a freak for the spots on her face which she so desperately wanted gone but didn’t go away no matter which skin creams she tried—

Gransla wordlessly opened her wallet, pulled out a pair of twenties, and left them on the table as she passed by Mimi.

Mimi looked at the green slips of paper, crisp enough to look like they’d never been used, and stood by the kitchen island trying to figure out what it meant. It was more than she’d ever been paid at once, enough for more than two tubes of concealer if she rationed it carefully. That was good. Even if Gransla was making enough for forty whole dollars to be spare change it meant something that she’d just given the money to Mimi without question. That was a positive.

It also meant that apparently all Mimi had to do was ask.

Silently, she folded the bills away, put on her coat, and started walking to the drug store.

***

Mimi stared at her phone, the screen bright under the shady arms of the willow tree. It was a nice phone, nicer than most of her classmates, with a touchscreen and games and everything. It could text way faster than the awkward number pad on their flip phones, autocorrected for when her brain made the words wrong, and could give directions better than the adults who chaperoned her field trips. It even accessed the internet.

Right now a string of green bubbles climbed all the way up one side of the screen, starting big and blocky, with good grammar and clear syntax, slowly becoming more and more incoherent, numbers substituting for sounds and sentences separating out into different messages, a shotgun of inquiries that all asked some variation of where are you?

At the bottom of the screen there was a single grey Work.

Then, The campaign comes first.

“Did your Mom text you?” When Mimi looked up, Mrs. Luschwitz (Karrin, she insisted on being called, but Gransla said that calling non-family adults by their first name was immature) was smiling, a plate of grapes and crackers in one hand and a juice box in the other.

Mimi’s fingers flicked through different menus, deleting the grey bubble. “Not yet. She’s coming though.”

Mrs. Luschwitz nodded, pointing to the space next to Mimi. “Gotcha. Mind if I sit here?”

Mimi nodded, paused, then shook her head.

Mrs. Luschwitz shrugged. “If you don’t mind, I’ll take that as a yes.”

Mrs. Luschwitz stayed there for the rest of the picnic, long after her grapes and crackers were gone. She stayed even when one of the other kids worked up the courage to ask her to play frisbee with them, a decision which Mimi wasn’t sure whether to feel proud or guilty about. She stayed until Gransla finally showed up, exactly as the last day of fifth grade ended.

Mimi stood up to go get in the car, but before she could take so much as a step Mrs. Luschwitz pulled her back for a hug.

“I’m going to miss you, okay?” Karrin whispered.

Mimi hugged back and blinked the burning out of her eyes. “Me too.”

***

“We need to talk.”

Mimi looked up from her phone. Gransla was standing in the doorway, emotionless as ever, with a plastic baggie of cigarette buts dangling from one hand.

“They’re not mine,” Mimi said automatically. It was even true. She never smoked at home, didn’t let people smoke in her car, and she didn’t forget to throw her butts away.

“Dining room.” Gransla disappeared down the hallway, and after a moment Mimi followed her.

Mimi and Gransla mostly didn’t eat together. Mimi went out with the Deb9 for meals when she could, and Gransla usually didn’t get home until ten. The dining room was meant for parties, where Gransla would converse with other members of the community using polite words laced with undertones Mimi didn’t understand while the other teenagers that inevitably came part and parcel with the parent stared awkwardly at her. Those meals were inevitably terrible, over seasoned and over cooked until it all tasted like clay, but showing up to those was part of being a daughter.

Gransla sat down at the head of the table. Mimi sat at the other end, six seats away.

She didn’t wait for Mimi to get settled. “How long have you been smoking for?”

“They’re not mine,” Mimi repeated.

“There’s no benefit to smoking. It wrecks your lungs, your brain, your reproductive system, and your teenage years are about the worst time you could start. I trusted you to be an adult.” Gransla held Mimi’s gaze, then sighed. “Clearly, that trust was misplaced.”

She folded her hands. “What you do reflects on me. From now on, I’m going to exercise a little more control over your life. You could have avoided this, but you didn’t.”

Mimi nodded mutely, slowly turning down her brain. Gransla always delivered her speeches in the same dull monotone, espousing the same principles of delayed gratification, forward-thinking plans, and carefully management of limited resources. Mimi had taken those to heart, and when she started picking up smokes she kept them in mind. Once a week, never more than that, and never more than two at a time. Even the most pessimistic studies said she wouldn’t get too sick from that.

Gransla said more words, the sounds slipping in and out Mimi’s mind without changing anything. It was if the meaning had been sucked out of them, reducing millenia of language development to wind passing through flapping lips and curling tongues, strange stimulus that carried no information of value. At some point Gransla inclined her head towards Mimi, to which Mimi absentmindedly nodded back. Gransla left the table, ghosting away on too-quiet feet, and Mimi went back to her room.

Halfway up the steps, Mimi’s was struck by a sudden wash of heat. It was if all the rage, all the longing, all the where are you?’s and love me!’s and what can I do to please you?’s hit at the same time, a tidal wave of lava that lit her veins on fire and stole her breath away. Her clothes were too constricting, the walls too close, she sprinted the rest of the way up the stairs, she couldn’t breathe—

She was in the bathtub. Cold. Wet. Her clothes were still on, and the shower head was running. Mimi shut off the water and sat there, dripping against the porcelain, thinking.

She went back to her room. Her fingers were numb from the cold, and it took a bit to fumble the plastic lighter out from where it was buried under the pile of dirty laundry. Later Mimi would have to throw it out, but she could have a few hours with it while Gransla slept.

It took a few tries to catch. Mimi’s hand were still wet, and for a second she was worried that the moisture from her skin had ruined the oil. Then the fluid caught, the tiny flame shone bright, and Mimi almost smiled.

Instead Mimi pulled up her pants and lowered the fire to her thigh.


End file.
